Last Saturday, our friend Joe came to visit, and in the course of trying to find something to do, we decided to attend the Barnstable Ghost Tour. I'm not sure how many two-year-olds go on the tour. The guide warned that there would be darkness, and therefore possibly crying, but he didn't seem terribly concerned and welcomed us along.
AwesomeCloud was awesome. He was so good. He got to run around in a grassy field (AKA a cemetery) and eat a muffin (from the haunted general store, which was kind enough to stay open while we wandered the aisles looking for grey-haired ladies out of the corners of our eyes). He even made a new friend - the college student assistant. By the time we got to the old Barnstable jail, which is 400 years old, it was quite dark and we only had the guide's flashlight to see by. We all gathered in the largest jail cell and the flashlight was turned off.
Pitch dark.
We grownups looked around us hoping to see a ghost - since it was too dark to see anything real.
AwesomeCloud giggled. Stomped his little feet imitating the guide. Giggled some more.
Then we stopped for a diaper change, and went to the last house on the tour. While the guide told the scariest stories of all, AwesomeCloud got to sit on a stone wall, hold Joe's bottle of cola, and go up and down the handicapped ramp. And he got to say, "Woooooooo!" in a creepy voice.
All in all, a very enriching experience for him. Not a trace of crying! Not a trace of ghosts, either. But we got something out of it, too. Daddy enjoyed the history lesson, and Joe showed off some of his impressive knowledge. And I... I ate the other half of the muffin. Yum!
It turns out the Ghost Tour has a Part II. Rick and Joe are attending it now. We decided it was too late to bring the Kiddo - and too long. And too boring. It involves listening for ghosts with a tape recorder. Rick made some jokes about pointing his camera at streetlights and saying, "Look, it's an orb!" Apparently, he did that on his last ghost tour. I wish I'd been there that time.
The problem with the tape recorder method is that the ghosts tend to be very monosyllabic. The guide asks a yes or no question and then you can hear a very faint "Yessss."
If I were a ghost speaking into a tape recorder, I'd go ahead and be long-winded. I'd tell them more than those living humans ever thought they'd wanted to know. I'd go off on tangents. Then again, if I'd been God, I would have gone ahead and told Moses all about evolution. And germ theory, while I was at it. I dunno, I guess the spirit world would consider me pretty offbeat.
Fortunately, I enjoy the state of existence in which I'm still pretty offbeat, but reasonably so.
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